


Hold Your Breath (It Gets Better)

by CounterfeitBravado



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 07:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14327349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CounterfeitBravado/pseuds/CounterfeitBravado
Summary: Then-- immediately, automatically, spontaneously-- she laughs, and even though Alex processes and understands that Maggie is laughing at her, she can’t help but find the carefree sound so utterly, entirely, wholly beautiful./ /In which Alex Danvers is stuck on Earth with an irritatingly smug-looking detective and an irksome mark on her arm and one hell of an undesirable circumstance.





	Hold Your Breath (It Gets Better)

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy hey, I wrote another soulmate au.  
> A few things that are so, definitely not accurate in this fic: science, any police/government jargon, alien biology/tech

 

There’s very little credible, scientific fact known about soulmarks.

 

The marks are usually seen as something more of a mysterious enigma-- dismissed, categorized as something that’s merely unexplainable.

 

The leading theory surrounding the marks had something to do with the iron in one’s blood-- making words appear on skin in increasingly darkening script with every moment nearing the first encounter. It was something with certain iron molecules being attracted to move closer to the surface of the skin in response to the close proximity of one’s soulmate, who would be experiencing the same thing.

 

Despite research on the topic being rather hard to conduct, Alex feels the lack of certainty concerning the marks was due to human thought itself-- most people didn’t feel the _need_ for an explanation, the mysterious history of the marks only adding to the allure of the whole thing.

 

The marks show up by the time most people reach their eighteenth year. Having gotten hers at twenty, Alex had thought she had dodged the bullet altogether, but nevertheless, the words were inscribed onto her skin come the night of her twentieth birthday-- light brown, nearly translucent, definitely not readable.

 

Alex had been fine with it at first-- the further her soulmate was, the better-- she didn’t have the time to worry about all that when she still had herself to deal with. She wasn’t ready to include another person into the mix of her hectic schedule and her even more disheveled family life just yet.

 

That was her reasoning all through college and after that, it morphed from reluctance to downright despisement.

 

She had to watch her mom deteriorate in that house of theirs, slowly wasting away and becoming bitter come the death of her father. Alex thinks Eliza was most likely mad at her father for the meer act of dying, all on its own.

 

(Alex doesn’t blame her-- she’s mad, too, in a way that had her screaming the feeling the out, tearing it from her very throat every night on her surfboard, begging the world to listen.)

 

But, Eliza and Jeremiah were soulmates. And some weird feeling was associated with that title-- so Alex noticed.

 

So she watches.

 

Alex watches as her mom pokes and prods at her own life to distract herself from the pain, making derogatory comments about Alex’s grades and extenuating her failures. Alex watched her mom raise Kara on a pedestal, leaving her to stay stagnant on ground level, pitting the two against the other in competitions she could never win.

 

But Alex understands. Understands that her mom’s finding her own way of coping, even if that means having to take one or two or hundreds of snide remarks to see her mom get better.

 

She understands but that doesn’t mean she quite likes it.

 

That feeling often morphs into confusion. She’s mad-- mad at the way her mother treats her, mad at how she had to push aside her own grieving to allow Eliza to-- but not at Eliza herself. Having no rightful place to direct her anger, it festers inside her until she finds the perfect thing to blame-- the mark.

 

Alex watched as soulmates destroyed her mother.

 

She isn’t too keen of the idea of letting it destroy her.

 

So it stayed in the back of her mind, until the mark became an insignificant thought and Alex didn’t feel the pressing need to look down at it every five seconds.

 

She manages to live that way for an impressively long run.

 

/ /

 

For the past three weeks, all Alex has heard about is Detective Maggie Sawyer.

 

She doesn’t really mind hearing about the mysterious woman and she always considers it a good thing when something in Kara’s job goes right, what with Snapper always breathing down her neck, but she can’t help but be increasingly panicked at the stories of this perplexing detective.

 

The first week, Kara had burst into her apartment with a box of donuts from the bakery down the street, one of which Alex was able to keep for herself, firing off the events of her day, the story laced with a new character that Alex had yet to learn of-- Maggie Sawyer.

 

She figured this Maggie Sawyer person was an alright character-- even with Kara’s naturally rose-tinted goggles, the Detective received an abnormally good review.

 

Kara had been assigned a story to investigate, a seemingly simple assignment to report on an anti-alien organization that was rising in publicity in National City, a group dubbing itself ‘Cadmus.’ From Kara’s previous assignments and articles, Snapper had thought it a good exercise for the young woman, one that would help her build a passive voice and write without a plain bias. Detective Maggie Sawyer had been assigned to give her access to alien-related crimes by her precinct captain. Alex had asked her sister if she wanted any help DEO-wise, after all, they were an organization made _specifically_ to study that exact topic. Kara waved the offer away and promised to come to Alex if everything got all “Explodey.”

 

The first week, Alex hadn’t noticed anything different, too focused on the President’s visit to the city and keeping watch over the affair.

 

By the second week, all Kara would go on about was her story. Though she had successfully landed an interview with a member from the organization and already had a written report on the conversation, something was still bothering her.

 

“There’s something _more_ going on here, Alex. I can’t explain how I know, but _I know_.”

 

By the second week, missed lunches and canceled sisters’ nights became common as Kara threw herself into her research.

 

It’s during this time that Cadmus-made weapons find themselves in the hands of notorious criminals and Alex wants to take over Kara’s investigation but she refrains herself when Kara lectures her about ‘being her own person’ and ‘being able to take care of a little weapons cartel’ and ‘besides, I have the _law_ by me… Yes, of course, I meant Maggie.’

 

With the Guardian and James and Winn’s little vigilante duo, she doesn’t have time to fight with her sister on an unregistered threat. She drops the issue with very little prodding.

 

The third week, the second rescheduled sisters’ night, and the umpteenth story of Detective Sawyer is when Alex finally notices _it_.

 

They’re _darker_. The words on the inside of her wrist, the ones she’s managed not to stare at since she was twenty, the ones that, up until _very_ recently, had been at a consistent light brown script maring her skin, barely even legible, are becoming increasingly prominent to match her increasing panic.

 

With the way the whole system works, Alex had figured people would be more cautious of their first impressions, but with, _Anyone ever tell you all you feds sound the same? It’s like you think all us dumb, local cops ever do is sit on our asses and wait for Major Crimes to take over our cases,_ printed on her wrist, she realizes maybe not everyone had the same thought.

 

She’d been feeling different lately, feeling this sort of dreading twisting in her stomach, like she was always sitting on the edge of anticipation (others would call it “butterflies”).

 

Alex knows very little about soulmates and soulmarks and everything concerning the two, but she’s sure of three things; the darkening of the words on her skin means the coming of her meeting with her soulmate, that that meeting will most definitely change everything, and that whoever her soulmate is, _god,_ do they have horrible handwriting.

 

/ /

 

That night, Alex is called back into the DEO by an urgent alert to her phone. She had already been making her way out the door when it came in, already aware of the threat from how the news had live-streamed a cyborg wreaking havoc in the downtown sector of the city.

 

Alex makes her way towards the threat, driving fast and unapologetically so, making the split decision to drive straight downtown rather than detour and head to the DEO first. After all, she has a firearm strapped to her hip and a bullet-proof vest in her trunk. She’ll just meet her team on the field.

 

Turns out, driving towards a commotional scene as a civilian has its perks. Everyone in their right mind is running _from_ the cyborg on the other side of the road, the few left take to hiding behind rubble and filming the disaster on their phones.   

 

Alex finds herself on the scene, making her way to DEO-issued vehicle from where she spots it across the street, near the outskirts of the fight. The NCPD is there, some officers forming a barricade while others hide behind their patrol car doors and shoot at where Supergirl and the cyborg dance around each other, streaks of heat vision colliding.

 

She winces, looking away from the bright explosion.

 

Mobilizing her team, a group of DEO agents makes their way into the crossfire, joining the officers in firing upon the cyborg only to find the man push forward in his assault, bullets ineffective.

 

Alex curses under her breath, diving to the side just as the cyborg launches a detached piece of sidewalk towards her team, superhuman strength not excluded from the assailant’s arsenal of powers. Rumble and dirt fly in the air and behind her, Alex hears Agent Azzarello cough violently and clear his throat. She makes a mental note to check up on his condition after the apprehension of the threat. The agent scans her team for signs of serious injury.

 

Just ahead, someone yells out, “Bomb!” and Alex is dropping behind the projectile just thrown her way before she even has a second to think about it.

 

The sky is painted in a blast of green haze and Alex realizes that whatever that was, it wasn’t meant to be an explosive. Officers and agents are dropping, falling unconscious as they breathe in the substance now littering the air around them. She can barely make out how the cyborg takes a fallen Supergirl and disappears into the sky before she, too, falls unconscious.

 

/ /

 

Alex finds herself waking up in the DEO medical bay with a pounding headache and a splint around her wrist.

 

She contemplates going back to sleep for maybe the next fifty years but snaps back to it, her thoughts going to Kara. She’s up and marching down to the control center before Dr. Hamilton can catch up to her, immediately making her way to where Winn is typing furiously on his desktop.

 

“Where’s Kara?” Alex asks, her tone more demanding than anything. Winn flinches in surprise but swivels to face the agent, the color draining from his face.

 

“Yeah, uh… about that--”

 

Alex cuts him off before he can finish his sentence. She knows where it was going, she doesn’t need it verbally confirmed that her sister is…

 

“How long have I been out?”

 

“Maybe an hour or two. J’onn is having us quarantine everything and everyone within a ten-block radius, just to be safe. It's like one of those movies about the nineteenth century, you know, with TB? The ones where like, someone would cough into their handkerchief and then pull it back to see blood on it and like, everyone in the room would gasp? We’re analyzing the particles in that cloud that knocked you all out. It’s pretty hard to decipher, being that it isn’t a biological virus or a bacterial threat.”  

 

“What do you mean?” Alex inquires, eyebrows furrowing.

 

“With the TB analogy or the--? Right, the cloud thing.” Winn swivels back towards his computer, typing away and angling the screen towards Alex. “It wasn’t a virus or anything, they were _nanobots_.”

 

“Nanobots?”

 

“The explosion released thousands of these little, microscopic devices that would enter into the body as soon as you breathed them in, and _rewire_ your brain.”

 

Alex doesn’t know what to ask about first. She goes with, “So everyone has robots _inside_ of them now?”

 

Winn shakes his head, “It looks like whoever made them programmed them to do one thing then just biodegrade into the bloodstream. We don’t think they’re made of harmful material that’ll poison the host more but we’re not too sure yet. We need to keep everyone under surveillance to gauge any further reactions.”

 

He gives her a once over and winces, “That reminds me, you really shouldn’t be up.”

 

Alex waves away his concern and leans over to look at the screen.

 

“And what of the others?”

 

“As far as we know, the nanobots were just programmed to stimulate the part of your brain controlling your consciousness. Like a sort of… power button to your body. None have woken up yet, we transferred most of them to National City Medical Center and asked the admin to keep tabs on their health for the next few weeks.”

 

“‘Most of them’?”

 

“We’re still working on getting everyone either here or there. We have every available agent out on scout for anyone that might’ve been infected by the bots. You’re one of the first to wake up, seeing as you weren’t as close to the epicenter of the blast. Your team should be up any minute.”

 

Alex nods and goes to study Winn’s screen. The control center is in shambles around her-- agents shouting orders, bodies being wheeled in by the second, and an overall sense of commotion and panic draping over the space.

 

She hears J’onn’s booming voice echo around the room and with a shared look to Winn, the two are rushing, making their way to where he stands next to a hunched over agent.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

“We’re in the process of transferring Detective Sawyer over from the National City Med Center,” J’onn explains, a pointed look to the agent next to him. “Someone just needs to deal with the paperwork, she’s already on her way to headquarters.”

 

The agent walks away with a distinct nod, immediately lifting a phone to his ear to get the job completed.

 

“Detective Sawyer? That’s the officer Kara was working with on her Cadmus case.”

 

“Even if it wasn’t, the Detective was at the scene before any first responders--”

 

“So she was there with Kara before it all went down.”

 

J’onn nods in the affirmative, “Which means whoever did all this, whoever took Kara, might’ve been connected to that Cadmus case they were working. And whether or not it is connected, Detective Sawyer has a first-hand account of who that cyborg was. So either way, she knows information that may help us and she’s been working the case for a while, she’ll have more knowledge on how to proceed if this is connected to Cadmus at all. We’ve been having trouble with the organization ourselves. I don’t know the full prowess of their power but with their history with alien technology, I wouldn’t put this attack past them.”

 

That… _feeling_ returns to Alex’s stomach, churning and bubbling up inside her. She feels the slightest pulsing in her ulnar artery and if that damn splint wasn’t around her damn wrist, she has the strongest intuition that damn mark would be damn near glowing against her fucking skin.

 

She knows what’s coming, _who’s_ coming. And though she knows how it should literally be her least priority, no way in hell is she ready.

 

Winn nods, eyes trained on the swift movement of the agents around the control center, “Okay, what’s next then? How long until she wakes up?”

 

At that moment, a group of agents storm in, wheeling in a woman on a gurney, rushing to get her to the medical bay. They clamor over each other-- reaching for tubes and wires to hook the Detective up to an IV unit, where it seems they’re feeding a morphine drip through. She looks terrible-- looks like death, itself, sucker-punched her in the gut, kicked her teeth in, and spit at her just for the added spite. The woman’s eyes flicker when they start prodding at her abdomen and Alex catches a hint of intolerable pain in a pair of the softest brown eyes she’s ever seen.

 

(She pretends not to feel a stab of something in her chest at the sight.)

 

They stare as the agents roll her away.

 

J’onn’s attention is back to Winn and Alex, “We can deal with that later. She wasn’t only affected by the nanobots, but also by the initial blast of the explosion. She was thrown fifteen feet into the concrete foundation of a building. It also appears she was grazed with some sort of bullet. We need to get her treated first.”

 

Alex feels her blood run cold and _no, no get her as far away as possible_.

 

/ /

 

Alex isn’t there when the Detective first wakes, she’s on the other side of the country talking to a contact who swore he had information on the cyborg who took Supergirl. Turns out, the guy had known nothing of use and she returns to National City no wiser than she had left, only to be ushered into a conference room within minutes of when she steps back into the DEO days later.  

 

The agent briefs her on the way to the room, rattling on about how Detective Sawyer had woken up two days ago, discombobulated and confused. She was read in to the existence of the DEO and Pam from HR had made sure she signed every needed disclosure agreement. The agent tells her that the Detective hadn’t known of Supergirl’s alter ego and how J’onn saw it best to keep it that way. It’s the first time in the two days that she’s woken up that she’s cognizant enough to be questioned and due to the time-sensitive nature of the event, J’onn had thought it best to get the Detective in a conference room as soon as possible.

 

The first thing Alex notices as she steps into the room is that the Detective is in no shape to be up and about. She drags her eyes down the other woman’s body (looking at her with the purely analytical part of her brain, the purely doctoral part of her brain) and notices how her skin is a sickly pale, how the balance of her weight is skewed to favor her left leg, and how her breaths are uneven and labored. There are various small cuts adorning her body and her shoulder is wrapped tight. Still, the woman stands with an air of bravado, her bold and swagger nature rolling off in waves even with her injuries glaringly prominent.

 

(It’s unfair how much Alex’s body reacts to the sight.)

 

Alex steps in inconspicuously as the Detective is in the middle of a sentence, nodding at J’onn in acknowledgment when his gaze meets hers. Detective Sawyer averts her eyes to see where the Director’s attention went, spotting Alex as she’s slipping through the door to make her way to the corner of the room. The woman gives Alex this dazed look, this goofy kind of smile spreading onto her face as she gives Alex a little wave-- then, as if shaking herself off and remembering where she is, the woman gives a slight jolt, frowning as she looks down at herself, as if confused by her own actions. Alex thinks she sees the woman’s eyes glint with something unknown and thinks she hears her breath hitch as she speaks.

 

(But getting thrown into the concrete foundation of a building does that to a person.)

 

With Alex’s arrival, J’onn returns to regard the Detective with a, “From the top, Detective Sawyer.”

 

The Detective clears her throat and goes on with her full report of the events, and Alex pretends she doesn’t notice how the woman’s gaze shoots to her multiple times during her recounting of the event, almost in a way that seems involuntary.

 

“We were walking down the street to go meet up with one of Kara’s contacts when the cyborg appeared. I told her to get off the streets and went to try to call the threat in, but the man went straight for us and before I could react, he was shooting these… glowing, blue bullets at Kara and I, one grazed my arm before we could find cover. Then Supergirl was in the sky and that bomb was going off and then I woke up here a week later.”

 

“You’re sure the bullet was blue, right? Not like, any other shade, maybe? Like, oh I don’t know, red or orange or _green_?”

 

The woman regards Winn with a sort of amused look as she nods in affirmation.

 

J’onn crosses his arms as he leans back into his seat, “We know you and Ms. Danvers were working on investigating an organization called Cadmus. They specialize in putting alien weaponry for sale on the black market and whatever that cyborg was wasn’t Terran technology. Do you think he was affiliated with the organization at all?”

 

The Detective gives a tentative nod, her hand coming up to fiddle at the bandage around her opposite arm. “He was yelling all this crap about ‘otherworlders’ and the more Kara researched, the more it seemed that Cadmus’ main goal lies in the basic gist of that. They aren’t just putting alien tech on the markets, they’re doing it so their brand gets out there, so that it’s something familiar, something people can recognize. They need that kind of attention to do whatever it was they were planning.”

 

“And do you know anything about what that plan might be?”

 

She shakes her head, “Kara did. She said she knew their whole operation, swore she heard it all herself-- all she needed was evidence. That’s why we were going to meet her contact the day of the attack. Is she here, too?”

 

Alex exchanges a tentative look with J’onn, one that doesn’t go unnoticed by the Detective, who raises an eyebrow in concern, her lips tugging downwards.

 

J’onn clears his throat and addresses her once again, lying through his teeth as he states, “Kara was taken during the attack. Most likely because of the fact that she knew of their strategy.”

 

It’s a believable lie, Detective Sawyer had just revealed what Kara unveiled about Cadmus’ plans. It’s not far off to believe that to be something that could cause Kara her safety-- something the Detective must know at this point. The woman regards this with a frown, furrowing her eyebrows as her gaze travels down to the table, where she lightly taps her fingers. She seems to be fighting with something inside her.

 

“There’s another thing that may be useful to mention.” She takes a moment to pause, contemplative in nature as she seems to be throwing an idea around in her head. “Or, rather, not _useful_ , but definitely noteworthy. The cyborg, sir, he looked exactly like _you.”_

 

The room falls silent after that. Of course, the majority of the people in the room knows what that means, and no doubt would they most definitely talk about the fact later, but something else nagged at Alex’s mind at the new revelation.

 

She shoves the question back down her throat in favor of voicing, “So what now, then?”

 

She makes a point to direct the question at J’onn, as she’s found it insanely hard, if not bordering impossible, to stare directly at the Detective-- it almost hurt to look at her, what with her chest tightening and pulse fluttering when she so much as glanced at the woman. She tells herself it’s because the woman is so clearly in pain, both from her injuries and from the stress of having something this heavy land on her as soon as she woke. One glance at the Detective’s misfortune and her brain is undoubtedly firing off neurons in the right supramarginal gyrus, neurohormones spreading and creating a chemical imbalance that stimulates a certain feeling inside her. _Sympathy_ , her brain supplies, she’s _sympathetic_ is all. Nothing more.

 

J’onn goes right into action, starting by ordering Winn to lead the tech team in trying to track down Supergirl. He goes to talk to Alex about the Detective’s involvement in the rest of the case-- something he’s all for, believing she could be of use, and something Alex would rather not involve, wanting her to be at least three city blocks away at all times.

 

She tries to make a case against NCPD involvement in a DEO investigation and she must forget to mind her volume because now the woman is talking directly at _her_ when she rolls her eyes and says, “Anyone ever tell you all you feds sound the same? It’s like you think all us dumb, local cops ever do is sit on our asses and wait for Major Crimes to take over our cases.”

 

And with those words, every bustling agent in the room stops their work and turns right to Alex. She doesn’t blame them, after all, if they feel even a fraction of what Alex is feeling now, then freezing is a perfectly acceptable response. Every nerve in her body stops feeling, she swears her blood runs cold, and her brain all but short-circuits-- and it feels like she’s floating. Not flying in the way she does when Kara zooms off with her in the night and not falling in the way she did when she landed a spaceship back on earth-- but somewhere in the middle. It’s all the feeling of elation experienced when flying mixed with all the sinking feeling of falling, and Alex is beyond herself. Then, like a switch had been flipped, every nerve in her body fires off again, all at once, her blood thrums through her veins like it’s sprinting, and every neuron in her brain flares into action, and the chemical reaction is _electric._

 

And it is most definitely not a _normal_ reaction.

 

The Detective steps back at seeing the strong response to her words, frowning and looking around the room as if begging someone to agree with her that whatever’s happening is fucking weird.

 

When Alex finds her voice, it’s because she bristles at the challenge, because despite having memorized the words on her wrist, she never expected them to be delivered so _harshly_ and fuck, she’s got a certain kind of pride for her damn job, and soulmate or whatever, she isn’t about to let it be besmirched.

 

So she’s pretending all her co-workers didn’t definitely just see her first meeting with her… _that,_ and she’s pretending she still isn’t shaking from what literally just happened and before she can even fully process it, she’s saying something about _Easy-Bake Ovens_ and _jurisdiction_ and she honestly feels she could do better in the insult department but not in this particular moment, not when her brain’s refusing to work with her on this.

 

Alex takes comfort in the fact that her words put Maggie Sawyer in just as bad a condition as she’s in.

 

/ /

 

They refuse to address the fact at first-- and Alex is so completely, definitely okay with that. She doesn’t need the stress of all… _that_ added on with her sister’s disappearance. At this point, she wouldn’t mind dismissing the Detective back to the NCPD with a pat on the back and a _thank you_ card delivered through Standard Post (it’s not like she has money to burn on Priority Shipping), but J’onn seems to have other plans.  

 

The day after the conference, Maggie is back in the DEO with a summons from the Director himself-- something Alex finds out just as she’s getting out of the training room and getting called over to command central to see the woman standing next to J’onn.

 

Alex is about ready to attempt to strangle J’onn when he appoints her to take the lead with Maggie and interagency diplomacy and she swears she sees something gleam in his eyes when he reasons, _You two seem to have the potential for a great connection._

 

They didn’t have soulmates on Mars-- not like they do on Earth. Martians had freedom in that sense. Alex wishes she had signed up for the NASA-funded trip to Mars when she had the chance. Instead, she’s stuck on Earth with an irritatingly smug-looking detective and an irksome mark on her arm and one hell of an undesirable circumstance.

 

/ /

 

The NCPD arrests a human wreaking havoc near the center of downtown with an alien weapon and when the convict drawls on about Cadmus, the case is given over to the Science Division and from there, Maggie brings the information over to the DEO.

 

It’s the first lead they have in weeks and as soon as Winn gets his hands on the tech, the investigative team traces the manufactured parts to a warehouse just near the arts district of National City and a team is assembled to raid the depot within the hour.

 

To say it goes horribly would be an understatement.

 

How Cadmus managed to escape the DEO’s radar way back then, when they obviously have the capability for mass destruction, Alex doesn’t know. She does, however, know this much: without intervention, Cadmus was able to grow into something of a superpower-- and this much is evident when the DEO gets their ass kicked during the raid.

 

Maggie armors up, a Glock in the holster by her side and a standard-issue kevlar vest strapped to her chest. She sits next to Alex in the helicopter ride, sidling up to her, mumbling something of an apology and a, _I don’t really know anyone else,_ but Alex doesn’t mind the calm her presence gives when all hell breaks loose.

 

Even with having studied the layout from the blueprints Winn gave her, Alex feels like she goes in blind when she’s immediately fired upon from places she doesn’t even see. They’re outnumbered. By a lot.

 

She’s almost purely instinctual during that fight, throwing punches and roundhouse kicks before she’s even really thinking about how she’s throwing her weight and swinging her hips. And throughout it all, Maggie’s at her six, taking deadly aim at where Cadmus operatives come pouring in from a raised walkway (Alex doesn’t know what’s more surprising-- the accuracy of her shot or the seemingly unlimited capacity of her clip) and slamming the barrel of her gun into someone’s face every now and then.

 

J’onn is forced to order a retreat and Alex stews angrily during the ride back to base.

 

Maggie sits across from her this time around, her head tipped back to lean on the headrest of her seat, her right arm twitches at her side. She shouldn’t have come to the raid-- not with her injuries just healing-- but Alex can’t deny the gratitude she feels for the woman who had probably just saved her life more times than she can count in the span of the day.

 

Alex tells her so, her voice coming out in more of a grumble, and Maggie tips her head down in a nod, smiling slightly as she responds with an, “Anytime, Danvers.”

 

/ /

 

Maggie’s presence becomes something of a common occurrence in the DEO, so much so that Alex questions if she ever gets in trouble for all the absence from her actual job at the precinct.

 

Still, Alex can’t deny how much help the Detective’s been to the case. Ever since the raid that went down a few days ago, no new leads had popped up-- and no overall progress in finding her sister. With Maggie’s help with the investigative team, Winn is able to make an algorithm to track any activity that resembles what Maggie describes as _‘distinctively Cadmus.’_

 

However, there’s still not much Alex can do in the meantime besides deal with minor alien threats and push her body in training. So she does both in abundance.

 

She takes point in leading any assembled tactical team out into the field and comes right back to punch and kick at various things in the training room. And that’s what she’s doing when Maggie finds her one day, coming into the room with a file in hand.

 

“Have a second to go over some details for my report, Danvers?”

 

She leans back against the wall next to the door, shutting it with her foot as her hands come up to cross across her chest.

 

Alex doesn’t stop her assault on the punching bag in front of her-- doesn’t even look up to acknowledge the woman.

 

“I think the bag could use a break.”

 

“And I’d like to think you’re perfectly capable of doing your own paperwork, Sawyer.” Even as she says it, she steps back and away from the heavy bag, tearing her boxing gloves off and taking her time with unwrapping her knuckles. She leaves the gloves and the wrap on the floor, haphazardly kicking them off to the side of the room, taking a moment to let out a breath and wipe the sweat from her forehead. “My office?”

 

“As much as I’d love to see your James-Bond-esque secret hideout, it’s my fundamental belief that paperwork is best suffered through over liquor and crappy bar peanuts. You up for a little field trip, Danvers?”

 

/ /

 

“So this is where you get all your information about the alien populace of National City,” she states it more than she asks it, drinking in her atmosphere before resting her gaze on Maggie.

 

“They also make a mean peach mojito.”

 

They spend the greater half of the night at the dive bar and about two hours in of Maggie silently doing her paperwork, occasionally throwing a question out, and Alex tapping through the apps on her phone, Alex grows impatient.

 

She lets out an exhausted sigh, downs the rest of her drink, and nods towards the door.

 

“Anymore pressing questions you could most definitely answer yourself before I head out?”

 

Maggie gives a kind of a cynical smile at that, shaking her head as the pen in her hand stops moving across the paper, “I bore you that much, Danvers?”

 

“Why are we here, Sawyer?”

 

“Is it a crime to want a bit of company?”

 

“We’re not…” Now Alex is shaking her head. “we’re not _friends,_ Maggie. We work together. Quite begrudgingly, might I add.”

 

“Is that why you hate me so much?” Her voice is resentful, though Alex notes the resent isn’t directed at _her._

 

“You’re a cop. I’m a federal agent.” She shrugs like the logic makes perfect sense. “I’m pretty sure we’re _supposed_ to hate each other.”

 

“Well, no. No, _clearly_ we aren’t.”

 

Of all the damn times she could’ve brought it up…

 

She sits back down with a defeated sigh and refuses to look Maggie in the eye, instead, she focuses on where the other woman has taken to tapping the end of her pen against the grain of the table.

 

“It’s not… I don’t hate _you,_ if anything, I’m mad at the situation.”

 

Maggie makes a noise of compliance, “I guess meeting over the abduction of a family member and a national heroine isn’t really what most would describe as ‘meet-cute’--”

 

Alex addresses this with a shrug, not really going deeper into her insecurities with the whole affair.

 

“Look, I know this whole soulmates thing doesn’t necessarily mean anything romantic-- and it doesn’t have to with us-- maybe we were just meant to be really great friends. And I’m fine with that. What I’m confused about is why it seems you’re so against everything that has to do with me.”

 

“I, uh, I haven’t really had the best experiences with anything like this, and with everything happening with Cadmus and my sister and Supergirl, it just,” A pause. “took me off guard.”

 

It’s not exactly _wrong--_ in everything Alex has tried to map out for the course of her life, every ten-year design and five-point plan-- in no situation had she accounted for the arrival of Maggie Sawyer. She has yet to conclude if the woman’s presence will bring about more benefit than harm.

 

“‘Off guard’? How so?”

 

Alex rolls her eyes and answers with something she’s been weighing over in her mind, “Well, for starters, I hadn’t realized I’m gay.”

 

Maggie blinks once. Twice. Then-- immediately, automatically, spontaneously-- she laughs, and even though Alex processes and understands that Maggie is laughing at _her,_ she can’t help but find the carefree sound so utterly, entirely, wholly _beautiful._

 

Maggie manages to control her laughter, but a brilliant smile is stretched across her face, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh at that, I know that’s a lot to go through, I’m sorry, it--”

 

“No, no, it’s fine. I mean… looking back at it now, it makes sense.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah, well,” she shrugs, “there were definitely signs.”

 

Maggie chuckles at this, shaking her head and regarding Alex with a slight tilt of her head.

 

“So, I’m guessing the stress of the gay awakening doesn’t really help with the stress of everything else going on?”

 

“It hasn’t really been a walk in the park. You made it easier. _Make_ it easier,” because despite Alex’s hatred of the situation, she wants Maggie to know she’s grateful for her in that sense.

 

Maggie gives her a small smile and echoes her words from earlier, “Anytime, Danvers.”

 

Alex deflates a little, smiling as she admits, “I guess you’re not so bad, Sawyer.”

 

“Gee, you really know how to make someone feel special,” Maggie drawls. She finishes the rest of her drink and fiddles with the label of the bottle nervously. “So, we’re okay?”

 

Alex nods in response, feels a bit of her anger dissipate with the hopeful look on Maggie’s face-- feels a bit of hope swelling inside her in return.

 

“We’re okay.”

 

Maggie clinks the neck of her empty beer bottle to Alex’s, a grin spreading across her lips.

 

“I can work with ‘okay’.”

 

“And I can work on distinguishing what I hate in _general_ to what I hate about _you,_ ” Alex jokes, rapping her fingers against the table.

 

“Ah, finally. Progress.”

 

/ /

 

It’s a slow process, but eventually, Alex starts to trust Maggie. It happens over late nights spent pouring over the case, early morning jogs around the waterfront, and afternoon lunch breaks.

 

But mostly, it happens as such, on days and incidents like this:

 

They receive more bad news concerning Kara’s whereabouts than they do good news and after every failed bust and every misinterpreted tip, when Alex wants to spend the rest of her day nursing a bottle of something preferably on the harder side, Maggie drags her to the alien bar.

 

She broods and glares at just about everything that moves but Maggie provides a listening ear and a reassuring smile, and before she knows it-- immediately, automatically, spontaneously-- she’s laughing, and even though Alex processes and understands the dire situation, she can’t help but find herself lost in a feeling so utterly, entirely, wholly _beautiful._ She’s high on Maggie’s presence and she can’t help but feel addicted.

 

It doesn’t fill any gaping holes her sister’s disappearance brought along, but it’s _something--_ something anchoring, something that’s certain and real and _there_ where Kara isn’t.

 

Alex tries to figure it out-- tries to figure out what exactly is it about Maggie that somehow helps, but the more time she spends with the Detective, the more she comes to realize the difference isn’t in something tangible, but just something that _is._ Like some sort of inarguable, absolute law of the universe, Maggie Sawyer is undeniably, utterly unique.

 

It’s in the way she wrings her hands together and taps her foot to the offbeat of a song and tilts her head when she’s confused or amused or dazed that Alex finds so, fatefully fascinating.

 

The woman commands attention-- commands it in a subtle way with her small smile and big eyes and those damn fucking dimples. The woman commands attention. And it’s impossible to look away.

 

/ /

 

“Do you have any siblings?”

 

“Not that I know of.”

 

“What’s that mean?”

 

“Just… heavy family drama, nothing you need to worry about.”

 

Alex blinks softly at the other woman.

 

“I’ll uh…” Maggie furrows her eyebrows before letting her expression adopt a small smile. “I’ll tell you about it one day.”

 

There’s a lot of healing needed between the two of them, that much is obvious, but if Maggie wants to shoot pool and take turns in ordering drinks and rib Alex about her James Bond-esque headquarters until she’s ready to speak, then Alex will try to let her win and take up the tab and retort back with quips of her own Easy-Bake Oven-esque precinct. After all, the system seems to be working so far.

 

/ /

 

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Alex drops the pen in her hand down to her desk, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms.

 

Maggie looks up from where she does her own work across the desk. Taking note of Alex’s body language, she sits back into her own seat and rests her paperwork on her lap.

 

“Go on.” She gestures, habitually capping and uncapping her pen.

 

“That first night at the DEO, when you were giving your account on the explosion downtown, you said something about Hank looking exactly like the cyborg that attacked.”

 

Maggie’s lips play out a small smile, her hand coming down to rest on the armrest and her head tilting in that way that it does, “I’m not really hearing a question here, Danvers.”

 

“Why did you trust the DEO when its director looked like the assailant?”

 

The other woman shrugs easily, “I’ve been assigned to alien cases enough to know that things shouldn’t be taken at face value. I mean, you of all people know that there are over ten registered alien species that have the ability to shapeshift.”

 

Her smile turns sheepish, “And I really wasn’t in the position to withhold information from the head of an organization I woke up in after a week of being unconscious.”

 

Alex hums, “Fair enough.”

 

“But, uh, now that the floor is open for a bit of honesty, I think I found something about Cadmus.”

 

Alex leans forward at this and Maggie takes the gesture as an invitation to spread her paperwork out in front of Alex.

 

“Look at this.” The Detective thumbs through the files to find plans for different Cadmus-produced weapons. She lays out six pages side-by-side and Alex studies them with a quick glance. “Cadmus is mostly known for their weapons dealing, but more often than not, they’re modifying the alien mech.”

 

Maggie points to the obvious modifications to the different weapon’s individual parts. “We knew that already but I began to wonder _why_ they would do that-- the market for alien technology is pretty small as it is, so they’re not modifying it to have a certain angle over competing providers or anything like that.

 

“So I started looking deeper at specific modifications and, look. They’re not just taking the alien tech and adding like… a human-centric grip to the handle of the weapon to make it easier to use or whatever, they’re splicing certain alien mechanics with _other_ alien mechanics.”

 

Alex nods along, noting how the six weapon plans laid out in front of her call for specs detailing multiple otherworldly devices.

 

“So what are you thinking?”

 

Maggie furrows her eyebrows and worries her bottom lip, troubled.

 

“I think they’re working under some sense of _eugenics._ ”

 

Alex’s eyes widen at the word, “That’s a heavy accusation, Sawyer.”

 

“I know, I know, but hear me out-- look at the certain tech they spliced together.” She points to the page on the far right and goes down the line. “Used properly, this weapon can prevent a Green Martian from shapeshifting, this one can block a metahuman’s psychic abilities, that one can make a Coluan appear more anthropomorphic, and so on. All their tech, even if they don’t sell it to showcase these certain designs in the black market, are working to take some specific trait from one species and completely rid of it, or use it to experiment on a human.”

 

“And you’re thinking that’s the core belief of their organization?”

 

“I’m starting to.”

 

Alex gives a hesitant nod. It made a certain type of sense, even with how uncomfortable the thought made her.

 

“And do you think it’s the aliens they’re trying to make more human or humans they’re planning on… _modifying_?” The thought is enough to cause her stomach to churn.

 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a little bit of both.”

 

“Either way-- that’s… Maggie, that’s not good. If they’re playing with technology right now, how long before they take the study to something more _alive?_ Hell, even their cyborg on the day of the attack, it’s obvious they’ve moved to human experimentation. If they’re trying to create some type of perfect being…” She winces as her mind wanders further into that thought. “Jesus, fuck, they have Supergirl.”

 

Her need to find her sister only grows.

 

/ /

 

She’s looking over the progress of the patients hit with the nanobots from that initial explosion way back when on her tablet, when it hits her.

 

She snaps up from looking at patient data on the screen in front of her, “Oh my god.”

 

Maggie looks up from where she watches Winn play an intense game of Tetris on his desktop. Winn angles his body towards Alex but it’s obvious he’s only half invested in whatever she has to say.

 

“What?” Maggie eyes her cautiously.

 

Alex blinks once and takes a breath in, exhaling with an excited, “Oh my god.”

 

That’s what gets Winn’s attention.

 

His eyes flicker from his screen to where Alex taps furiously on her tablet before giving up with a grunt of frustration and addressing Winn.

 

“The nanobots-- from the initial explosion. You said they entered our bodies when we breathed them in, right? They didn’t pierce our skin or enter our bloodstream in that kind of way?”

 

“Uh,” Winn shared a bewildered look with Maggie before looking back at Alex, “yes?”

 

“Look at this,” she angles her tablet to face the two of them and Winn leans over Maggie’s shoulder to get a better look. “everyone affected by the nanobots-- every person from 10-block radius that was picked up-- initially, they hadn’t shown anything to indicate they were even _near_ the incident--”

 

Alex taps and swipes at her screen before coming up with the results of the patients’ most recent follow-up. She lays out the screen to show a random group of ten different patients.

 

“--until now.”

 

Maggie’s eyes widen at the results on the screen and Winn looks between the two women to try and catch up.

 

“So what exactly is this telling us?”

 

“Look,” Maggie points to all the different profiles. “all these people have had no contact with each other, other than being near the explosion downtown, and they’re all showing up with nonionizing radiation poisoning.”

 

Alex nods and swipes over to show Maggie’s test results alongside hers. “Our results came back positive with the same amount of units of roentgens, too, from the same type of gamma ray exposure, which means--”

 

“The radiation came from the nanobots,” Maggie fills in, a look of realization dawning onto her features.

 

“Exactly.”

 

They turn to look pointedly at Winn, who, unfortunately, struggles to catch on.

 

“So, I mean, like, are you guys dying from radiation exposure or like…?” The furrow in his eyebrows and the frown set on his lips are enough to depict the uncertainty even he feels in his conclusions.

 

“For a goddamn genius, you really are fucking slow, Schott.” Alex rolls her eyes. “The nanobots-- the nanobots that left _traceable amounts_ of radiation in their host-- entered the bloodstream through the air.”

 

Maggie’s eyes widen, catching on to Alex’s implication, “Oh my fuck. Both Supergirl and Kara were at the scene of the explosion, which definitely means they were hit with the bots if they were taken unconsciously.”

 

“And since we can trace the different sources of the radiation, then we can use that same print to find Supergirl,” Winn finishes, clapping his hands together and letting out an exclamation before swiveling around to face his desktop. “That’s brilliant, Alex.”

 

Maggie reaches out to give Alex’s hand a quick squeeze, a grin playing on her face, before swiveling back to face Winn’s desktop and quietly echoing, “Damn fucking brilliant, Danvers.”

 

/ /

 

They find Kara, well, they find _Cadmus,_ and thankfully, the raid starts off better than the previous one. The DEO bursts into a warehouse full-force, guns ablaze, and Alex is proud to note that they’re able to take Cadmus by surprise.

 

She empties a clip into the oncoming horde of Cadmus operatives and dives behind a cover, landing on her knee in a way that has her crying out and rolling into herself. And suddenly, Maggie is at her side, her hands on Alex’s shoulders.

 

She’s saying something, something that Alex barely processes because beyond Maggie’s frame is a hallway-- a hallway that leads to a series of doors and if Alex squints enough, she thinks she sees a stream of green light peak from under one of those said doors. Kryptonite.

 

Alex grits her teeth and jerks her head towards the hall. Maggie looks over her shoulder and curses as she notes the same detail. Turning back to Alex with a nod, the two peak over the cover and Maggie vocalizes her plan to weave through the spray of bullets. They’re maybe three-quarters of the way to the hall when Maggie is struck with what looks like a dart and the detective is cursing loudly, clutching her arm, but manages to hold off collapsing until they’re cleared the distance and are safe with the cover of the hall.

 

Maggie falls heavily into Alex and it takes all that Alex has to ease the two of them down and start to check on Maggie. She wasn’t hit with a bullet, which Alex all but exhales gratefully for.

 

“Is that a fucking tranq dart? Did they fucking shoot me with a fucking tranquilizer?” She curses more when she’s in pain, which is saying a lot with the amount she already curses.  

 

Alex takes the needle from Maggie’s arm slowly, trying to gauge the poison, and thus, the threat, through the smell, but she comes up empty-handed.

 

She shakes her head, “It’s not a poison I can identify. Which may be good or may be infinitesimally worse. How do you feel?”

 

“Like I just got shot with a tranquilizer.” Maggie flinches as Alex sweeps the rest of her body for injuries. “Help me up, we need to move.”

 

“Yeah, uh, no, we don’t know what you were hit with--”

 

“Well, I won’t help anyone just sitting here. The first wave of feeling anything weird and I’ll tap out.”

 

Alex weighs it over in her head before hesitantly giving the woman a nod, “If you start feeling anything, you tell me immediately.”

 

“Yes ma’am, Agent Danvers.”

 

Maggie’s slower on her feet when she gets up but other than that, she shows no sign of immediate pain, so Alex pockets the dart for further analyzing later in her lab, and leads the two of them down the hall.

 

The door is locked with a series of codes and flashing numbers.

 

“Any chance Winn taught you how to code?” Maggie asks, eyeing the door with a look that increasingly loses hope.

 

“No, but I do know a thing about locks.” Alex studies the door in front of them-- it’s nothing that matches the level of DEO security. Whatever this base is, Cadmus obviously wasn’t planning to use it for very long. She smirks. “They’re only as good as to what they’re attached to.”

 

She gets incredibly, insanely, astonishingly lucky in the fact that she doesn’t break her foot when she kicks the door down in a single, heavy blow.

 

Maggie stares at her, openly gawking before managing to compose herself, clearing her throat. “Yeah, okay, sure. That, uh, that works, too.”

 

Kara is strapped to a table that houses green kryptonite lamps overhead and Alex rushes to her, jerking her head to communicate for Maggie to stay guard. The Detective nods and positions herself by the opening of the room.

 

Alex makes quick work in freeing her sister and smashing the end of her gun against the offending lights. Kara blinks awake slowly, hardly processing how her sister collides into her for a rough hug. It’s only when Kara moans at the pain that Alex eases away.

 

“Wha-- Alex?”

 

“The rest of the DEO is here, we’re going to get you out.” Kara pulls her back in for a crushing embrace and Alex eagerly returns the sentiment, repeatedly whispering, “I’m here now.”

 

And just when everything had started to look up, Maggie falls to her knees behind them.

 

Alex and Kara make quick work in assessing their chances of escaping alive. The numbers don’t fall towards their favor.

 

“What did you say she was hit with, again?”

 

Alex shakes her head in the negative, “I don’t know. They were using these.”

 

She hands Kara the dart and doesn’t take it as good news when her sister takes a sharp breath in.

 

“That’s the same substance they used on me and the others. It’s… It sucks, but it’s not the worst of it right now. We need to get her out of here.”

 

Alex looks down to where Maggie is curled into herself, muttering and cursing. She brings a hand down to smooth Maggie’s hair out of her face, taking note of how cold the detective’s forehead feels. She feels her own blood run cold in her veins at the sight. Alex edges closer to her frame, resting a hand atop Maggie’s, threading her fingers through and squeezing tight.

 

Kara watches the exchange with a confused look. She clears her throat and goes on.

 

“The poison isn’t anything from earth, not fully. It starts off with paralyzing you and you’re just… you’re just _stuck_ that way. Then, they play this noise, and it comes from everywhere, and it hurts so, so much from then on until it’s turned off again. I met a metahuman at one of the other locations, he said it was mostly psychological pain-- the poison is meant to trigger pain receptors when a certain sound is played. It’s hard to distinguish it as _all in your head_ when it’s all you can feel though.”

 

Kara states the facts in a sort of monotone voice and Alex immediately hurts for her sister, who’s undoubtedly gone through something unforgettable in the time it took for the DEO to find her.

 

“I’m sorry.” She tries to convey her emotions in the two heavy words.

 

Kara shakes her head, giving Alex a small, pained smile. “You’re here now.”

 

There’s a shout down the hall, coming from the open room where the majority of DEO agents are fighting, that snaps the sisters back into the space.

 

Alex unclips the yellow sun bombs she had Winn fabricate for the mission from her tactical belt and hands them to Kara, jerking her head towards the larger fight.

 

Kara looks from the bombs in Alex’s hands to her sister’s eyes, “I’m not leaving you.”

 

“They need you out there, if you’re feeling okay enough for that.”

 

Kara takes the bombs and gestures with them to emphasize her point, “I’ll get there fast enough.”

 

Still, she hesitates in getting up.

 

Alex gives her a genuine smile and reaches out to squeeze her shoulder, “I’ll be okay.”

 

“I’ll come back for you two.”

 

“Get the others out first.”

 

She’s off and down the hall with a quick hug. Alex turns back to Maggie, not having a clue on how to approach the bitch of a situation she’s found herself in.

 

“Come on, Maggie,” she mutters, trying to rouse the woman from her fits of muttered curses and jerks.

 

She manages to get the Detective to a much calmer state, but Maggie vocalizes how she can’t move any of her limbs, which isn’t the _best_ thing at the moment.

 

“Okay, that’s fine, we’re okay, we’ll be fine, great,” Alex murmurs, trying to position herself in a way to lift Maggie and successfully get the both of them out of the warehouse alive.

 

Maggie manages to wince at Alex’s efforts and croaks out a weak, “Leave me.”

 

Alex rolls her eyes, unable to help herself, “You’re fucking insane if you think I’m going to do that.”

 

/ /

 

The harsh blaring of a considerably loud commercial from the television rouses Alex from where she had fallen asleep on her couch. She scrambles for the remote on the coffee table, in a hurry to turn down the volume as not to wake Maggie from where the woman sleeps on the other edge of the couch.

 

Quite a while had passed since the raid of the Cadmus warehouse, but Alex knows she speaks for the both of them when she says they’re still affected by the events.

 

Things had turned to hell after Kara left the room-- the sound the heroine had spoken of, the one triggering the poison, had gone off and Alex swears she still hears Maggie’s screams whenever she closes her eyes. She’s a soldier, she’s fought in countless battles for what she believes is the greater good and even with that arsenal of experience, she had never heard a sound so utterly, entirely, wholly _painful._

 

The warehouse had gone into a lockdown after that, leaving them inside without the aid of the rest of the DEO, who had previously evacuated. It was an effort to scope out the warehouse for an exit, with Alex dragging along Maggie’s weight and nursing a bit of a limp herself. They had passed through unspeakable horror in their reconnaissance, witnessing enclosure after enclosure of failed species testing, chained prisoners, and tortured screaming. Alex could speak proudly of the fact that she’s seen more than the average human-- much, much more-- but she can’t booster that she can live peacefully with all that knowledge, not with the connotation of most of the things she’s seen, especially not after that night.

 

It was when the two broke into the control room that Alex understands the lengths of Cadmus’ eugenic studies-- and that time around, in a way that aided them. The organization’s study of genetics encompassed all parts of their operation; every study, every experiment, every _security measure._

 

There was no way to hack into the biometric level of their security, the locks needed specific fingerprints and eye scans and the whole nine yards-- knowledge of coding that Alex was sure only Winn would be able to break through. But she knew of another way around the whole thing, and for the second time in that mission, Alex gets incredibly, insanely, astonishingly lucky. Instead of hacking into the biometric locks themselves, she used her little knowledge of computer sciences to reboot the entire security system-- erasing any history of recorded prints and effectively earning Maggie and herself a ticket out of the horror house.

 

Kara was right outside when the two hobbled out, the apology on her tongue waved away and replaced with a relieved hug. Select DEO agents returned inside the warehouse to offer aid to those Cadmus wrongfully experimented on and a medical team worked quickly to assess the remaining damage.

 

And now, Alex sits on her couch with a muted television, a headache, and a wiped-out detective. They found solace in the other, even more so after that night, after all, the only person they knew to have gone through that experience was the other, and Alex finds herself grateful that Maggie was the one with her through it all.

 

She opts to turn the television off entirely and tucks the blanket over Maggie tighter, ignoring the way the heart speeds up at their close proximity.

 

/ /

 

“You okay?” Maggie looks up at her with a small tilt of her head. “You kinda spaced out a bit there.”

 

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”

 

“What’s on your mind, Danvers?”

 

“Nothing, I’m just… I’m really glad it’s you.”

 

Maggie hums, “I am quite the catch.”

 

“Quite modest, also.”

 

Maggie laughs at this and rocks over to nudge Alex’s shoulder. “I’m glad it’s you, too.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Of course, you nerd.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“For?”

 

“For being here, being with me, being my friend.”

 

Maggie looks like she wants to say something more, but the look is dismissed with a smile, “Anytime, Danvers.”

 

/ /

 

They’re spending a lot of time together, enough that Kara cancels sister’s night without much prompting when Alex goes up to her with a certain smile on her face-- she’s just met with a, _You’re lucky I like_ _Maggie, anyone else and I’d throw them into the sun for stealing you so much. I can do that, you know._

 

They spend most of their time together hiding away from the rest of the world, closing themselves off in the comfort of Alex’s apartment or Maggie’s apartment or the alien bar, and basking in the warmth the other’s presence brings.

 

Alex feels it’s too much sometimes, the feeling creeps up on her in a way that always succeeds in knocking her slightly off her feet, and yet, she finds herself craving it-- craving the way Maggie provides a sense of calm and serenity while also sending her heart racing in the pursuit of wonder and adventure. She needs Maggie in the way she needs air-- the comparison is far out there, she knows, but it’s in the way that’s indescribable otherwise.

 

She wonders if maybe that’s what this whole soulmate thing is about-- not about being one’s _best_ self, Alex has known more than a handful of people who never met their soulmate and went on just fine, but of feeling an atmosphere of _home._

 

/ /

 

“Are you staying again tonight?”

 

Maggie makes a small humming noise, “Do you mind?”

 

“No.” Alex shakes her head. “Though you are going to have to start bringing your own pajamas or start doing my laundry because I’m going through clothes twice as fast with you always hogging them.”

 

“Oh, right, I guess I’ll just pretend you definitely don’t steal _my_ clothes, then. At least I return yours, Danvers.”

 

Alex huffs indignantly, at which Maggie laughs and drops her head on Alex’s shoulder. She, in return, promptly forgets her entire argument.

 

“I’m kidding, Danvers.”

 

“You bet your ass you’re kidding, like your baby clothes would even fit.”

 

“Do you always have to resort to the height thing? Damn, Danvers, get some new material.”

 

“New material? Like your wardrobe so desperately needs?”

 

“If this is about the lea--”

 

“Of course it’s about the leather jackets.”

 

Maggie grumbles on her side, sinking further back into the couch.

 

“I mean, I’m just saying, what’s with all cops and wearing leather?”

 

“All cops, huh?”

 

“I mean; Jake Peralta, Rosa Diaz, Aly Nelson, _you._ ”

 

“You realize your argument relies solely on tv show characters, don’t you?”

 

Alex elbows her playfully on the side. “Just… okay?”

 

Maggie laughs again, looping her arm to wind around Alex’s, “Sure, Danvers. I guess I’ll start bringing a night bag.”

 

/ /

 

The Daxamite invasion rains down on them and happens in a blur.

 

Alex remembers it in small measures; she’s helping a beaten but not defeated Supergirl up from a fountain after a fight with Superman, she’s jumping off a building, hugging Maggie in the alien bar, contemplating the death of her sister to the enslavement of the earth, watching her sister fall apart as the rest of the world celebrates-- and she doesn’t fully process exactly how she feels.

 

She’s never really been great at doing that, but she’s gotten better with Maggie’s gentle coaching. She’s decided to head over to Maggie’s, if nothing but for a debrief of the invasion, when she opens the door to reveal the Detective herself.

 

“Maggie! I was just about to call you.”

 

“Hungry?”

 

The other woman carries two handfuls of food, a pizza in one, a six-pack of beer in the other. Alex moves forward to help set the items down on her kitchen island. She starts to say something but is cut off when Maggie clears her throat and gives her a look that can rival Kara’s heat vision.

 

“I need to talk to you about something.” Her voice is hardened with a certain something Alex can’t place. Alex stays silent and motions for her to go on.

 

“Well, here’s the thing, we almost died tonight, and I know I would’ve killed myself either way if I don’t say this now. I was driving back to my apartment when it really hit me-- throughout all of this fucking insanity, it’s _you_ that’s been the constant. And I’m saying that because it’s _us,_ because I was driving back to the place that I live and realized that that won’t ever be enough-- because throughout all this fucking insanity, you’ve been my _home._ ”

 

Alex doesn’t really know what to make of what’s happening, she can barely hear her thoughts forming over the way her blood rushes through her ears. She can’t understand how to think, so she focuses on what she feels. Her hands are clammy by her sides, and she can feel her heart beat in a crescendo, and every part of her pulses with a kind of positive energy. She hesitantly links the energy with _hope,_ because this is Maggie and this is them and though she’s never once had a good experience with the foolish emotion, she can’t figure out another way to explain the swell blooming in her chest.

 

“And fuck, Danvers, how many times do we have to face death to figure this out? We’re mortal and life sucks, but you make everything more beautiful. We should be who we are--”

 

Maggie gets a cautious look on her face and Alex wishes she could assure her of everything she’s saying, because _yes, please, please go on to tell me what I’m hoping to hear,_ but her voice gets stuck in her throat and so she nods instead.

 

“--and we should kiss the girls we want to kiss. And I really just… I… I want to kiss you.”

 

Then-- immediately, automatically, spontaneously-- she does, and Alex can’t quite processes and understand it at first, but she’s utterly, entirely, wholly _breathless._ Maggie’s hands are framing her face and her lips are on hers and all at once, she’s lit aflame.

 

Alex can’t help but feel so damn mad at herself because fuck, _this_ had always been with her, this capability of this level of intensity and she’s pushed it all away because of her one-sided notions on soulmates. She judged Maggie on a ridiculously set bar and never let her reach for it, but she knows now-- knows better, and what she doesn’t know, she’s willing to learn.  

 

Maggie pulls away and Alex says something she hopes comes off as witty and totally not like her brain cells have just fucking abandoned her, and basks in the warmth of Maggie’s laugh, and she’s pulling her back in and once again, her world is on fire.

 

She gets it now, gets it as she feels every possible combination of contradictions-- breathless and yet, like she’s just now breathing, flying and yet, she’s anchored in security, and everything in between. And still-- it’s more, _better_ , and she is utterly, entirely, wholly _captivated._

 

**Author's Note:**

> And scene! How many different fics can be produced from that one scene in 2x08? Not enough.  
> I'm over at tumblr @superxbat if you want to go and say hi  
> Hope you guys liked it, have an awesome day! :)


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